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The solution to X (Twitter) sucking is to stop using it. It will either: get fixed or go out of business and be replaced. It seems we've become a society that

The solution to X (Twitter) sucking is to stop using it. It will either: get fixed or go out of business and be replaced. It seems we've become a society that rewards bad practices with attention which is all any company on the web is trying to get, your attention.

hackerlight 3y ago
> It seems we've become a society that rewards bad practices with attention I have a very different way of looking at this. It's not us that gives attention. It is them that take it via exploiting our evolved inflexible cognitive systems for attention/reward/desire/anger/lust. We are moths to a flame. The moth's free will isn't to blame for its inability to avoid it. Our cognitive systems are fixed, we can't just turn them off. If a sufficiently powerful dopamine-inducing technology is made, you can't just "opt out". It is not as simple as that. Any individual variation in the ability to opt out likely comes down to variation in genetics or other extraneous factors not inside one's immediate control. This is where regulation needs to come in. Once you accept the reality that opting out is a comforting yet false illusion, you can then do something about it.
- altacc 3y ago
  Tim Wu makes a similar point in his book The Attention Merchants. Humans are interested in things and throughout time various people and media (which tends to be controlled by a small number of people) have been working to capture our attention. It is very hard to totally opt out of something that is so pervasive, like fish trying to ignore water.
ravetcofx 3y ago
Mastodon has been a breath of fresh air and you can get a really interesting feed going when you follow the right people and hashtags
- RMPR 3y ago
  And it can handle Twitter scale now https://blog.redplanetlabs.com/2023/08/15/how-we-reduced-the-cost-of-building-twitter-at-twitter-scale-by-100x/ https://blog.redplanetlabs.com/2023/08/15/how-we-reduced-the...
  - hk__2 3y ago
    > And it can handle Twitter scale now *in hosting costs.
- gsuuon 3y ago
  Which people and hashtags? Trying to check it out but struggling to find relevant content. Is there a tech community somewhere? The ones I found appeared to be dead.
  - dm319 3y ago
    Fosstodon is a good place to start maybe? Plenty of tech on Mastodon, hopefully other interests will follow.

hackerlight 3y ago

> It seems we've become a society that rewards bad practices with attention I have a very different way of looking at this. It's not us that gives attention. It is them that take it via exploiting our evolved inflexible cognitive systems for attention/reward/desire/anger/lust. We are moths to a flame. The moth's free will isn't to blame for its inability to avoid it. Our cognitive systems are fixed, we can't just turn them off. If a sufficiently powerful dopamine-inducing technology is made, you can't just "opt out". It is not as simple as that. Any individual variation in the ability to opt out likely comes down to variation in genetics or other extraneous factors not inside one's immediate control. This is where regulation needs to come in. Once you accept the reality that opting out is a comforting yet false illusion, you can then do something about it.

altacc 3y ago
Tim Wu makes a similar point in his book The Attention Merchants. Humans are interested in things and throughout time various people and media (which tends to be controlled by a small number of people) have been working to capture our attention. It is very hard to totally opt out of something that is so pervasive, like fish trying to ignore water.

ravetcofx 3y ago

Mastodon has been a breath of fresh air and you can get a really interesting feed going when you follow the right people and hashtags

RMPR 3y ago
And it can handle Twitter scale now https://blog.redplanetlabs.com/2023/08/15/how-we-reduced-the-cost-of-building-twitter-at-twitter-scale-by-100x/ https://blog.redplanetlabs.com/2023/08/15/how-we-reduced-the...
- hk__2 3y ago
  > And it can handle Twitter scale now *in hosting costs.
gsuuon 3y ago
Which people and hashtags? Trying to check it out but struggling to find relevant content. Is there a tech community somewhere? The ones I found appeared to be dead.
- dm319 3y ago
  Fosstodon is a good place to start maybe? Plenty of tech on Mastodon, hopefully other interests will follow.